Pokemon Go - Cyber League
by GunpukunoBosco
Summary: In the distant future, Pokemon Go has a sudden and mysterious rerelease. With new Augmented Reality and Nanotech advances, it proves to be an instant hit all over again. But something dangerous is hiding in the code. Join Blanche, Spark, and Candela, siblings bearing the namesake of characters in the old game, as they rocket to fame, fortune, and power in this Cyberpunk Adventure.
1. Blanche

It was an unremarkable day in June when Blanche became a celebrity. The patch notes came through at noon. The first sarcastic message from a friend asking to join Team Mystic arrived before one o'clock. The second and third came just minutes later. She turned messaging off before a fourth notification could pop up on her HUD. It was good natured teasing, she knew, but it was irritating all the same.

Blanche suppressed her frustration by reminding herself that she was the lucky one out of her siblings. Blanche had once been an uncommon but "real" name. Her sister, Candela, and her brother, Spark, had it worse. Her name was unique, but theirs were just odd.

Their parents had grown up with the original PokemonGo. The game was already dying back then, but it had been significant enough in their lives to name three children after the in-game team leaders. It wasn't available for download these days, though her parents had made all three of them play it on emulators to see where their namesakes came from. Luckily, no one else from her generation even knew about that old game. Until today.

How many messages would she get about Team Mystic? Too many already.

She rolled onto her side. The past three hours she had spent lying in bed, hoping she'd wake up and remember this day as a funny dream. No such luck. She had to get out of bed sooner or later, and now was as good a time as any to get up and face the elephant in the room. Or the… hippo in the room?

The dopey, pink, cross-eyed hippo. It turned to stare at her and tilted its head to the side.

"Slow," it sighed at her.

"Yes," she muttered disapprovingly, "it seems you are."

Blanche glanced to the bottom left corner of her vision, then to the bottom right. Her code to toggle the AR UI. The menu reappeared, asking her to choose a starter. She had two reasons for her pick. First, she thought it was the least stupid of the three. Second, everyone was bound to choose fire because it looked cool, so it made perfect strategic sense to take Squirtle.

Continue. Continue. Continue.

The pokedex was added to her apps. Several pokeballs were delivered to her inventory. She received a brief explanation of Nanite-AR integration, the standard stuff. And finally the terms and conditions. It had only one line: "Have fun."

Accept.

Blanche sat up and wondered why she was doing this. There was no reason to suffer through this insufferable game. Except that she didn't have a choice. She couldn't turn it off, since she never turned it on. It shouldn't have gone live this way, but that was a problem for the GovNet to sort out.

Her HUD automatically loaded up the pokedex entry for slowpoke when she looked back at the pink creature. The data confirmed what she suspected about the Pokemon.

"So, you're stupid," she said while reading its info. "Too stupid to even feel pain. Of all the creatures in this game, how am I so unlucky to end up with you in my room?"

It sat for several seconds before it breathed out a delayed, "Slow."

Blanche reached to her nightstand for something to throw at the slowpoke. Her fingers closed around a tissue box and she sent it sailing to the floor. Her room lit up in a pink explosion as the nanite swarm scattered and her AR-RetinalRendering display went crazy. The skin texture coalesced where the nanobots had been and the slowpoke looked at her with half a face and said its name again.

"Impressive," she said while watching the swarm slowly reassemble. "You actually managed to get even uglier."

She double-blinked to open her virtual inventory and right-blinked with "Pokeballs" selected to use the item. Ambient nanites converged in her right hand to form a sphere. The hollow shell pressed against her palm with its magnetic simulated gravity. Blanche chucked the ball right at the slowpoke's mostly reformed face.

When it hit, there was no explosion of nanites. The two entities held together, and slowpoke dissolved into a bright red light that was swallowed up by the pokeball. It hovered above her carpet, rocking back and forth a few times before coming to a rest with a loud "ding."

"So, this is my life now," she sighed, while blinking away the congratulatory message that informed her she successfully captured a slowpoke. "Hopefully it'll go away soon. The GovNet will add an opt-out like it should've had from the start, and we'll forget about it in a week. Just another quick passing fad, like that dog playing a theremin last week."

Convinced that life would return to normal soon enough, Blanche summoned the energy to get out of bed. It was too late to make it to her first class, but she could still grab a bite to eat and catch her afternoon lab. In the kitchen she swiped her finger from the corner of her vision to the blank wall, turning off her retinal display and switching on the wallscreen.

She still wanted to avoid personal messages, but her email might be safe from any name related mockery. Plus, there might be some info from the GovNet about the whole unclosable app situation. Blanche brought up the University site and entered her pin. The mail icon flashed with a bright red "99+" that pulsed every couple seconds as new emails poured in. With a reluctant blink to the wall mounted EyeNav, the first page of emails loaded in. CNN, The New York Times, The Onion, The Sun, the list went on and on with interview requests. All because of her name.

In a single soul crushing moment, she was reduced to a meme.

Blanche gave the blink command to close the wall display. Nothing happened. She tried again. Still nothing. Then she remembered that the EyeNav had a hard time picking up signals when there were tears in your eyes. And then she realized she was crying for the first time in years.

She retreated back to her bedroom with the wall display still on. The rest of the day was a lost cause as far as she was concerned. Better to simply go back to sleep and try again tomorrow.


	2. Spark

Spark was in many ways Blanche's opposite. The same day he skipped his high school graduation, Blanche received her early acceptance letter from Caltech. When a friend messaged him asking to join Team Instinct, he replied, "Hells Yeah!" and quickly set up a Team Instinct guild on the GovNet directory. And while Blanche caught her slowpoke in bed, Spark paddled his kayak through the choppy tide of Bremer Bay towards the gyarados he spent the last half hour tracking.

"It's right below us!" he screamed to Ruby in her kayak a few meters away.

"I can see it on my radar too." she hollered back to him. Ruby had never met anyone so excitable before, and the charm of it was beginning to fade. After an hour of battling magikarps, they were about to head in for breakfast when Spark spotted a gyarados on the radar's edge.

Ruby reluctantly agreed to chase after it. She tried to avoid most tourists off of her shift, but Spark won her over. She felt like he could go anywhere in the world and instantly make friends. Even the Pokemon liked him. Except for this gyarados. It swam away whenever they got close. But, sunburned and sore armed, they carried on after it.

Ruby glanced back to shore as she paddled farther out. The tourists weren't allowed out this far without a guide, and she wondered if even she was allowed out here on a kayak. The whale watching boats were one thing, but this didn't feel safe at all. She turned back to Spark to voice her concerns, only to find herself several meters behind.

"Hey, wait up!" she shouted instead.

They caught up to the gyarados icon on the map, and this time it stayed right with them. Somewhere beneath the waves. Spark stared intently into the crystal blue Australian water with an enormous grin plastered across his face.

Ruby watched his eyes search the depths for several minutes, all the while she grew more and more aware of how far out from shore the hunt for gyarados had led them. The beach was just a sliver on the horizon, even dipping out of view behind some of the larger waves. She looked back at Spark, still watching the water, completely oblivious to the danger they were in.

Finally she broke the quiet, "Spark, maybe we should-" only to be silence by Spark's battle cry.

"Pikachu!" he shouted and the Pokemon materialized on the bow of the Kayak in a flash of red light, "Thundershock!"

A jagged bolt of lightning snaked forth from Pikachu and connected with the water right above where gyarados was rapidly ascending, jaws held wide open for a bite attack. The discharge sent a thunderous roar echoing across the bay, followed shortly by an eruption of steam as the attack's energy set the sea to boil.

Against an impenetrable backdrop of steam, Spark and Ruby received a notification on their HUDs. 

Foe gyarados defeated.  
Earned: 500XP 

"Oops," Spark chuckled, "looks like we're just too strong, huh buddy?"

"Pika," Pikachu replied with a proud smile.

"Are you kidding me?!" Ruby shouted over them. "We wasted hours of a perfectly good Saturday tracking down that fish, and you didn't even catch it? I'm putting an end to this trip right now."

"Aw, come on. Time is never wasted when you're having fun."

"Fun?" Ruby fumed, "Babysitting stupid tourists on my day off is not my idea of fun. Now let's get back to the docks before you get us killed." The steam slowly cleared away revealing her glare. Spark met her gaze with the best fake innocent expression he could muster.

"Or," he said with a smile, "I see another gyarados on the map. We could go catch it and make the trip worth it after all." His singsong voice would have convinced her back on shore, but it felt so wrong here, right after almost frying the whole bay. Everything was so casual to him. There was nonchalance, and then there was Spark.

"Absolutely not." Ruby slammed her fist against the water.

"Alright," Spark said with a shrug and dipped his paddle back into the bay, "you can go back to shore. I'll meet you there after I catch a gyarados."

Ruby shouted something after him, but her voice was drowned out by his paddling. He turned for a moment before she disappeared behind the horizon, raised his paddle to the sky and yelled, "See ya!"

Alone at last he thought. Guess she's more of a rule breaker than I took her for. I was sure she'd want to head back in after ten minutes or so. Nice to have her company and all, but now I can concentrate on the guild. 

[Guild][(Leader)Spark]: This whole conversation is pointless. The guild color is yellow and that's final

[Guild][Krys]: It's so bad tho. I wanna rep that team merch but it's so gaudy.

[Guild][(Officer)Courtney]: This issue was decided before any of us were born, instinct is yellow

[Guild][Drake]: Shouldn't it be green tho? Red, blue, and green like charmander, squirtle, and bulbasaur. There's no yellow starter.

[Guild][(Leader)Spark]: Do you not know about the Pikachu trick?

[Guild][Drake]: Wait, you can get Pikachu as a starter? 

Spark felt his pulse quicken without quite knowing why. He minimized the chat overlay to get a better look at the map. His heart skipped a beat when he saw the point he'd been following subconsciously. 

[Guild][(Leader)Spark]: brb 

"Pikachu!" he shouted. The Pokemon appeared on his kayak in a burst of red light. The yelling was unnecessary, but they always yelled like that in the old animes, so it felt natural. The battle system was set up for voice commands, while stuff like summoning Pokemon was considered inventory management and thus handled through the menu.

Spark controlled his menus with a set of haptic gloves linked with his overlay contacts. He made a thumbs-up gesture with his left hand, the command he set to challenge the nearest enemy. Battle music began to play from his earing.

"No electric moves this time." he whispered to Pikachu, "As soon as it breaches the water, hit it with a quick attack."

"Chu."

Spark watched and waited as the shadow beneath his grew darker and larger. The urge to run was strong, but he forced himself to stay put. He held the paddle millimeters from the surface, ready at a moment's notice.

This is a game of strategy he thought. Every Pokemon battle begins with a game of chicken. Who can deal the first blow? Timing is everything, and Spark trusted himself to get it just right.

"Now!" he shouted. Spark stabbed his paddle deep into the bay and pushed backwards on his left, then arced around in one fluid motion to do the same on his right. Pikachu leapt off the kayak, pushing him further back.

Gyarados erupted from the water just inches from the tip of Spark's boat. As the Pokemon surfaced, Pikachu vaulted through the air, shoulder first, and struck it dead in the eye. Pikachu uncurled from its attack pose and kicked off the enraged gyarados to land back on the bow of Spark's kayak.

Perfect timing. The Pokemon had only a sliver of health left. That critical hit assured his victory. He clenched his left hand into a tight fist and a pokeball materialized in his right. The size and weight mirrored a baseball.

"Pokeball go!"

The gyarados turned to face Spark just as the pokeball hit its mark. A red glow encircled the Pokemon and then it broke apart. Nanites scattered into the sea and the pokeball was left shaking on the waves. Once. Twice. Three times. Ding! 

Gyarados was caught!  
New data added to Pokedex 

Spark read over the notification with a smirk.

"Flawless victory, buddy." he said and gave Pikachu a high five. He paused a moment after that. He hadn't expected Pikachu to return the high five. Were all Pokemon able to learn tricks like dogs? Something about it felt odd.

He looked around the bay trying to get his bearings. After these battles, he wondered, why is it a stupid pet trick has me so concerned? Maybe the ability to control lighting should worry me more. But… that makes sense. It's part of the game. Pet tricks on the other hand...

"Pika."

Spark looked down at the Pikachu sitting on his boat. The real, actual, not fake, honest to goodness Pikachu. Then at the gyarados in his inventory. His gut told him something was very, very wrong, but his brain couldn't tell him what any of it meant. He knew only one thing at that point: life after Pokemon would never be the same. The world was in flux, and Spark's only concern was coming out on top. 

[Guild][(Leader)Spark]: Back, caught a gyarados. 

Guild chat filled with the traditional "Gratz" and a few questions about where to find one. Spark waited for the chat to settle down before diving into the topic that had been on his mind all day. 

[Guild][(Leader)Spark]: So, has anyone found a gym yet? They were all over the place in the original game.

[Guild][Drake]: Stupid question, what's a gym?

[Guild][Krys]: They're control points for the game. And since it doesn't seem like the teams are official, we're assuming that it runs off the GovNet guild directory. We'll get some sort of points if we hold it.

[Guild][(Officer)Courtney]: They seem to be only in major cities. I have a friend who's working on a map, though. Where are you looking?

[Guild][(Leader)Spark]: West Australia. Wanna invite your friend to the guild?

[Guild][(Officer)Courtney]: He's actually gonna join Team Mystic once someone makes it. And your nearest gym is in Perth. I'm close by, wanna meet up and capture it?

[Guild][(Leader)Spark]: Sounds like a plan.


	3. Candela

Candela awoke to the sweetly acrid smell of sulfur-tinged air. She ran a hand through her short auburn hair then quickly gave up on trying to combat her bedhead and slipped out of the tent into the cool morning fog of Yellowstone Park.

"About time you woke up." Serena chided from the soft burning campfire behind their tent, "I've been waiting for three whole Old Faithfuls."

"Well ya gotta admit," Candela snapped back with a chuckle, "it's pretty impressive that I can sleep through three giant geyser eruptions."

"Pathetic more like it."

"You're just jealous cuz I'm better at sleeping than you. What could I have missed at five in the morning anyway?"

Serena offered her the pan of scrambled eggs along with her "I know something you don't know" look. Candela took a hearty helping of both.

"What?"

"They dropped a new update. ARsim Universal. You neeeeeed to see this."

Candela dove head first back into the tent to retrieve her ARcontacts and control glove. 3,506 messages. 1 OS notification. With a finger-gun gesture she opened the update.

"Oh," she gestured through the ToS, "hell," she picked charmander as her starter, "yes!"

Candela emerged from the tent with CharPlatinum, the newly nicknamed charmander, by her side. Now that she was logged in for the day, she could see Serena's charmander as well. The nameplate above its head read "Titan".

"Excellent choice." Candela nodded approvingly.

"Eh," Serena replied with a wry smile, "Squirtle was cuter but I had to start the fire somehow."

"They can do that!?"

"Did you even read the tutorial, C? Full nanite integration, they can do everything."

"Everything?" Candela repeated absently. Her gaze wandered the horizon while her mind raced through the possibilities. The landscape she saw was completely changed now that she was in the game. Nanite tech had limitless potential, while remaining discreet and noninvasive. Nanites were clear, so textures were applied to their forms at the visualUI level. With her contacts in, herds of tauros, swarms of butterfrees, and flocks of pidgeys appeared out of nowhere.

She looked down at Serena with a broad smile on her face, "Let's get going. There's a lot of work to do, so we'll get to it at the lodge."

Serena let out a soft sigh. Once, just once, she wished she could be the one to set the schedule. But Candela had plans. She always had plans.

"Fine then. I'll pack up the tent, you go get a bucket of water to put out the fire, k?"

"A bucket? Are you out of your mind, Serena?" She exclaimed, loud enough for many nearby animals and Pokemon to flee. "The world is done with such antiquities as buckets, I'm going down to the stream to catch a water type Pokemon!"

Serena ducked into the tent without a word. She knew by now to just ignore Candela whenever she got like that. She was ignoring Serena too, anyway. Candela was ignoring reality when her enthusiasm took control.

The path to the stream was a long, difficult trek. When Candela reached her destination, she knew exactly what her next step must be. After this, she would catch a flying Pokemon to carry her about and never again suffer the arduous task of walking. _Truly,_ she remarked, _the golden age of convenience is upon us!_

Candela stood on the shore of Firehole River, one of its few green shores. The river snaked through geyser fields, hot springs, and salt formations to create a roiling chemical soup. The grass below her feet was a rarity along the waterway. Some said the water had curative properties, while others warned it was deadly. Still, water is water. Real fish had vanished from this stream decades ago, but the game wouldn't know that.

The streamed gurgled as she scanned its surface, icy blue with streaks of red and rusty orange. Waters from many sources, with different makeups, refusing to mix. The stream gurgled again, its colorful surface was impenetrable, keeping in mystery what lay below. It gurgled once more, a small spring or geyser on the stream bed, gasping for air. Every 20 seconds, Candela counted. Little Faithful, she dubbed it.

Like a clock, Candela watched Little Faithful mark the passing seconds. 3 minutes and 40-some seconds, a splash pierced her ears, an enormous splash that, she thought, must have been heard throughout the basin. Time was upon her, Candela was on her feet, a pokeball was in her left hand, and her right was extended to challenge her foe.

"I feel sorry for you!" she declared to the magikarp that had breached the water's surface, "But I will not go easy on you. Hear me now, oh watery warrior, this battle marks the first of many on my meteoric rise to the top. Give it all you've got, let it be a contest worthy of the occasion!"

"Karp." its reply came swift and sure.

Candela tapped the button on her pokeball. Red lightning arced from its mouth to a spot by candela's side. The bright lights were a common practice in AR games, to obscure the interactions of nanites and smooth over the animation. Behind the curtain of light, her charmander's form took shape as trillions of ambient nanites assembled from the air into a Pokemon shaped swarm.

"Then let us do battle. Go, CharPlatinum!"

A combat UI spread across Candela's vision. Health and energy bars appeared above each Pokemon's head. A list of Char Platinum's attacks with their power, type, and energy cost hovered in a draggable panel by Candela's left hand. A secondary options panel hovered at shoulder height to her right.

 _Growl and scratch_ , Candela pondered over the moves. _Not great. I don't know what I was expecting at this level, but I hoped they would have skipped the boring part of the game._

She returned her attention to the enemy. Her gaze met magikarp's, two indomitable wills come to clash. Candela was sure she saw its eyes narrow with aggressive focus.

"Use scratch!" she roared.

Char Platinum surged forward, the claws of his right hand aglow with otherworldly power. With dinosaurian force in a final kick against the stream bank, he sailed out over the river, ready to strike.

Magikarp locked eyes with its oncoming attacker. _If fish could smile_ , Candela thought, _this one would be wearing the smuggest smirk I've ever seen. Even counting Spark._ The water around magikarp erupted skywards with violent ferocity to rival any geyser in the park.

"CharPlatinum!" she cried out, far too late to do anything. Charmander crashed headlong through the tumultuous wall of water, disappearing from Candela's view. She sank to her knees, hands clasped over her mouth. _Did I underestimate my fire that much?_

 _But, magikarp should only know splash,_ she pleaded to herself. _What happened?_ _Splash isn't supposed to do anything._

Droplets rained on her head as the splash attack subsided and the wall of water dispersed into a thin mist. She composed herself to look through the vapor and observe the results of the battle.

"Oh." she sighed. Splash had done nothing. Char Platinum stood on the opposite shore awaiting orders with full health. The magikarp turned to face him. It had a deep cut along the full length of its left side and its HP was in the red.

"Well, that _looked_ impressive, at least. But it appears I am victorious!"

"Karp." its protestations were much weaker than before.

Candela opened the item menu. Cluttered would be the polite way to describe it. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of games, many that Candela made herself, had their items jumbled together in a list that scrolled to eternity. She had been meaning to organize it for a few years now. She sorted by most recent and selected a pokeball.

She tossed it at magikarp and watched it engulf the Pokemon in red light. Its nanites scattered back into the air and water, but the animation gave the impression of being swallowed into the ball. It shook a bit, then played a ding.

Candela began her journey back to camp. She pondered over many things along the way. Strategy. Exploits. Her end goals. Mostly, she thought about what to name her new companion.


	4. Reluctance

"Slowwwww." it echoed over and over.

"Sloww!" the very air around Blanche seemed to scream.

"Slow." groaned the whisper in her ear on repeat.

Bzzt. _Finally, a new sound._ Bzzt bzzt bzzt.

Her alarm clock fought against the chorus of "slow" for Blanche's attention. With a final triumphant bzzt it won, and was promptly rewarded with a whack on the head as Blanche bolted upright and slammed her fist down on the off button. The same button turned on the lights in her room.

Five seconds later they noticed the change. "Slow!" all 28 of them bellowed in unison. Every surface was covered in Slowpoke.

"All'a y'all need to shut the hell up!" she shouted. Silence followed. Wonderful, glorious, peaceful silence. For a moment.

"Slow."

Blanche screamed incoherently, trying to drown out the virtual symphony around her. She hastily dressed in the first clothes she could find, grabbed her backpack, and dashed out the door.

The world outside was quieter than usual. Blanche was grateful for the silence. It was early morning, 5:30 am, time for the biweekly field trip. She walked this route before, always serenaded by the morning songs of birds and frogs. But today it was quiet.

Until she met a familiar face walking the other way.

"Yo, Blanche!" Dawn yelled and waved from down the path. "What are you doing out so early today?"

"Whad'ya mean? Same as you, I'm heading to the bus."

Dawn leaned in close, staring at the bags under Blanche's eyes. "You alright? Look like you pulled an all-nighter. Guess you forgot to check your email then, huh?"

Blanche thought back to her email. The inbox read over 200 new when she checked yesterday, it was probably an order of magnitude above that now.

"Uhh… no. My email is, um, it's not working right now. Why?"

"Field trip's cancelled." Dawn sighed with a shrug. "On the bright side, now you have time to help me with the calculus homework, today. Over to your apartment then?" she said with a smile.

"NO!"

Blanche's outburst echoed over the campus. Dawn recoiled, her face flush with confusion. A flock of psyduck stirred in the nearby duck pond. A few began to approach Blanche and Dawn, seeming to beg for bread.

"Sorry," she said shaking her head, "It's just that my apartment is filled with really annoying Pokemon. I can't spend another minute in that place. I don't think I'm going back there until this whole thing gets fixed."

"Well damn," said Dawn, "This game is ruining everything."

Blanche released a drawn out sigh. "Yeah, it's a rea- What d'ya mean 'everything,' what else got ruined?"

"Oh, I guess you don't know cuz you didn't see the email. That's why the field trip was cancelled. The Pokemon."

"GAH!" Blanche hurled her backpack off to the side and forcefully sat down on the pavement in defeat. At least, she wanted to sit on the sidewalk. Instead she firmly planted herself on a psyduck's head. Aside from the panicked wriggling, it made for a decent stool.

"Umm?" Dawn began.

"No." Blanche shook her head. An immovable frown was plastered across her face and her eyes were wide with strained determination to ignore the situation. Minutes ticked by while Dawn tried, and failed, to keep a straight face watching the poor digital duck flail about underneath her grumpy friend.

"Can we-"

"No."

"Okay, but-"

"No."

"PSY!" it cried out.

"Oh, shut up! You're not even real." Blanched yelled back at it. Her eyes flicked through the interface menu. She selected a pokeball and it appeared in her hand a moment later. Expressionless, she gripped the pokeball tightly and slammed it down in the psyduck's face. The psyduck disappeared in a flash of red light, its nanites scattered and Blanche fell flat on her back.

Blanche lay on the ground nursing the bruise on the back of her head. To her right, the pokeball shook back and forth three times before coming to a stop with a "ding." To her left, Dawn was curled up in a ball, also rocking back and forth, laughing uncontrollably.

Psyduck was caught!

New data added to Pokedex

Blanche stood up and blinked away the capture notification. Without a word, she turned and strode off to the bus stop.

"Hey," Dawn called after her, "don't you want the pokeball?" She grabbed the ball of nanites and ran to catch up with Blanche, falling in pace behind her.

"No." Blanche explained over her shoulder. "The psyduck is already in my inventory. That 'pokeball' is useless." She paused for a moment. "It's a really dumb game."

"Oh. Umm, where are we going?" Dawn asked, tossing the pokeball away.

"I'm going on the field trip."

"But it was cancelled."

"Then I'll do it for extra credit."

"Oh." Dawn followed after her in silence for some time after that. "I don't think that's how it works. Extra credit I mean."

Blanche stopped in her tracks, a few yards short of the bus shelter. Dawn failed to notice in time and crashed into her back. Blanche turned to face her.

"I just want it to be normal again. I'm not going to change my life for this stupid game." She looked down at her feet and continued just above a whisper. "Spark and Candela are probably loving this, but I want nothing to do with it. I need to live my own life. If I get famous somewhere down the line, I don't care, but I need it to be on my terms. This...

"I should have changed my name when I had the chance. Now it's too late, I'll be stuck with this identity forever. But I'm still in denial, and I plan on milking that for all it's worth."

She shifted her eyes to the clear blue sky and stood up tall. Her back cracked in relief as she freed it from her usual slouched posture. She stretched out an arm and pointed at a fearow roosting atop the bus shelter.

"And that's why, as far as I'm concerned, _that_ doesn't exist. I'm going to do everything I normally would, nothing has changed. I will pretend until the bitter end, that Pokemon only exist in a couple of old school games."

The two made their way to the bus stop in silence. Blanche had said all she wanted to say and then some. Dawn seemed deep in thought after hearing Blanche's monologue. They sat on the plastic cushioned bench, encased in advertisements flashing across the shelter's plexiglass wall displays.

"I didn't understand most of that," Dawn confessed, "but if you want to do the fieldtrip work anyhow, shouldn't you have brought your backpack?"

"Crap!" Blanche yelled as she bolted up and ran back down the path to the psyduck pond.

"It'd be quicker," Dawn hollered after her, "if you used a Pokemon. You can ride them, you know?"

"NO!"


	5. Something Fishy

Trainer level 5. That was when the game truly began. Or rather, that's when it transformed into something far beyond a game.

5 levels. 3,326 xp. 53 magikarps defeated to reach that point. But it was well worth the grind for Spark to unlock the first tier of perks, including the basic HM functions: cut, strength, and surf.

There was something about riding on the back of a gyarados that filled Spark with childlike wonder. Not to mention adrenaline. Mr. Fluffles cut through the ocean waves at breakneck speed. By car it would have been a 6-hour trip to Perth. Using surf, Spark was about to arrive in a fraction of the time.

A heavy odor of ocean brine and resin wafted up to Spark's perch atop Mr. Fluffles. That was the hydrophobic compound the nanites synthesized to let pokemon glide across water with such ease.

Aside from the smell, it was quite convincing. The slithering gyration down gyarados' tail perfectly mimicked how Spark would expect a giant serpent to swim. Its scales glimmered in the sun and pulsed with the simulated movement of muscles. Its fins swept back and forth like a swimming fish. Every detail was oddly perfect.

It was all a lie, of course. A clever facade. The "pokemon" was nothing more than a nanite macrostructure, propelled by the force of uncountable tiny rockets and rotors. Maybe the swimming motions did something to help, but at well over 200 mph, it was mostly for show.

Spark tried to keep reminding himself of that. It was easy to get sucked in to the illusion, if only for a moment. He wasn't sure if he wanted to accept this as reality yet, so he kept looking for the imperfections, the subtle hints that separated pokemon from the real world. He was so focused on those details, he never noticed the player tailing him until it was too late.

"Ice Beam!" roared a familiar voice behind him.

A chilling barrage swept by Spark's side. The cold air set alight with an icy blue glow from nanites along its path. The beam shot past and struck the water's choppy surface.

The waves exploded with spreading ice. A thick sheet of it formed in front of him. There was no time to react. Mr. Fluffles collided head on and the two of them went flying.

Spark skidded across the ice shelf on his stomach. He came to a stop near the far end. Mr. Fluffles sailed past him and fell back into the water on the other side. He surfaced a moment later with a tremendous roar. Spark turned the reshapable tread on his shoes to ice spike mode and got back on his feet to face his attacker.

Across the ice another gyarados glared back at them. It was bigger than Spark's and the sun must have caught it at an odd angle, because its scales appeared bright crimson. It lowered its head and the rider vaulted to the ice. She was using some sort of kinesthetic enhancements, probably one of Candela's designs.

"So, you managed to catch one after all." She taunted.

"Ruby? What are you doing out here?" Spark asked. He expected to never see her again after they parted ways.

"Well I was on my way to the Gym in Perth, but then I saw a time-wasting tourist and thought I might as well get some quick xp." Ruby explained. So, she was still mad about that. She patted the side of her gyarados' neck. "It's a shame there's no surrender option, since you don't stand a chance against LadyVicious."

Spark took stock of this UI. He was combat tagged, though he wasn't sure what all was meant by that. He had prompts for attack, items, and switch; concede didn't appear as a choice.

"Hmph." He crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow at her pokemon. "Why is she red? I think you got a defective one."

"She's a shiny!" Ruby shouted back. "That means she's better than yours."

"Well, your pokemon may be showy, but me and Mr. Fluffles will show you up. Speaking of which, use bite!"

Mr. Fluffles surged forward, shattering the ice in his path. He made a beeline for his foe.

Ruby didn't miss a beat. "LadyVicious," she roared, "counter with a hydropump!"

"Dodge it and stay on the attack!"

LadyVicious opened her mouth and a jet of water streamed forth. Mr. Fluffles dived under the surface to evade. She adjusted her aim to follow after him. The game of cat and mouse through the ice continued for some time. Spark watched on his HUD as Mr. Fluffles' health was chipped away whenever LadyVicious' hydropump made contact.

Something else opened on his HUD.

[haptype][Courtney]: Are you in the city yet? We need to get away from here.

He typed back a quick reply with his glove's kinetic keyboard.

[haptype][Spark]: Got challenged to a battle. Sending my geotag.

Spark turned his attention back to the battle. Their situation hadn't changed much. Mr. Fluffles was still trying to get in close, taking damage all the while. This wasn't going to end in his favor. He needed a new strategy.

So, he went with the first plan that came to mind and trusted his gut.

"Mr. Fluffles," he shouted over the battlefield, "dive down deep, then surface next to her for a bite attack!"

Then he continued in a whisper, "Stay right below the ice. Hit her with a dragon rage once she submerges." Gyarados didn't need to hear him. If only one nanite picked up his voice, Spark's message would travel across the network, wherever it needed to go.

Ruby took the bait. "LadyVicious, use dive! Hit him on the ocean floor."

LadyVicious arced through the air and dove head first into the sea. As soon as her tail disappeared beneath the surface, they heard a crash. A massive crack appeared in the ice sheet. LadyVicious came hurtling through it, carried on a beam of purple light.

"What?" Ruby shouted, dumbfounded, as LadyVicious slid across the breaking ice. "But that's not what you said. Your pokemon can't just do whatever it wants."

Spark flashed her a broad smile and ran a hand through his messy hair. He raised his voice to cover the widening gap between their two personal icebergs.

"You don't know who you're messing with, Ruby. I'm _the_ Spark. Pokemon is in my blood. My instincts are miles ahead of anything you can do."

Ruby was fuming when he finished. He was so nice when they first met, how did he become the most infuriating person in the world in just a few hours? Her face was flush with bottled rage ready to burst, but she was interrupted by the heavy sound of flapping wings.

A pidgeotto flew through their arena with a young woman on its back. It touched down on Spark's ice sheet and Courtney slid off it. She tapped the pokeball and her pokemon dissolved into red light. The beat of feathered wings disappeared, replaced by the distant hum of engines.

"Thank god I found you." Courtney started in a panic. "We have to get out of here, Spark. The whole city is crazy."

"What the hell is this about?" Ruby shouted at them.

"Just chill for a minute!" Spark snapped back. He put a hand on Courtney's shoulder to try to help calm her down.

She sat on the melting ice and caught her breath. "They banned pokemon in Perth. It's full on martial law. I got chased out as soon as I arrived. I think they're still chasing."

Spark looked to the north. Sure enough, he found three speed boats on the horizon. Their flashing lights marked them as police of some kind.

"We need to finish this later." He shouted over at Ruby.

"No way! You really think I'm gonna let you—"

"We need to get out of here! Now." He said it like an impatient parent. Like he was talking down to her. And that was too infuriating to let stand.

Ruby breathed in slowly. Then out. Then her lips curled in a vicious smirk. "Fine, I'll just finish this quick. _Hyperbeam!"_

LadyVicious reared up above the water, like a cobra ready to strike. A sphere of pulsing light appeared in her gaping maw. In the brief moment before it fired, Spark wondered how the game would render this attack. It might be like a really bright flashlight. Or maybe all the nanites along its path would light up. But that was just the visuals. It could use a sonic boom to simulate the explosive aspect.

And then his question was answered. Spark saw it before, when he was visiting Blanche at her university. It was the only thing in the lab she thought would keep his interest. A high-energy slow-light laser burst.

"Duck!" he yelled and dropped to the ice.

Mr. Fluffles obeyed his command. He dived into the water, narrowly evading the laser. Which meant there was nothing in its path between LadyVicious and the ice sheet carrying Spark and Courtney.

Spark threw his hands up to protect his face. The explosion threw his hands and the rest of him tumbling into the air in an eruption of steam. He hit the water hard.

In a daze he drifted. Drifted down, deeper and deeper. Light faded and the warm water enveloped him. Then a hand grabbed him by the wrist and jerked up.

Ruby pulled him to the surface. She had shed her jacket for the bright red lifeguard swimsuit underneath. Still not recovered from the shock, he thought she looked cute with her wet hair clinging to her face. He started to thank her, then remembered it was her fault in the first place.

She wasn't paying attention to him anyway. He followed her gaze to the nearby police boat. All three had arrived and were circling Spark and Ruby like buzzards.


End file.
